My fighters rest as the war rooms crank their numbers. Who got a promotion? Who spun their wheels? 1,345,330 Blackdragon Scales . WTF!? Dear Bots,.

Wasn’t easy. The Horde continued their losing ways. I think in the last battles the Horde didn’t even bother defending. Msaker would ride north out of the tunnel, and nobody, but nobody, peeled off to defend Galv. Taking Stonehearth was easy enough, and then the endless slaughter of Alliance trying to ride through. Then, that fun over, heading to the high road from which he watched over half our forces refuse to take the high road and instead feed the meat grinder at the head of the low road. As if apathy had set in. 78k honor for Msaker this week. Slightly more than last, and last was Alterac Valley Weekend. I think what helped was the several wins in Arathi Basin. Warsong Gulch was touch-and-go, basically if you are against a skilled Druid-Priest combo, the rest just find you and kill you. If not, Horde can win.

Arcarius won 3 of 3 AV’s last night. Too easy. Defending SPGY is easy. (Is standing on the SPGY flag, literally on top of the pole, an exploit? It wasn’t me, but I being warrior and rogue proof must be nice.) Assaulting Frostwolf is easy. Hey, you Horde. Just stay at Stonehearth and stop the riders. I’ll slip through your lines in wisp form if I need to. K, THX, BYE.

Arcarius also dinged level 56 grinding both in the Plaguelands and the Burning Steppes. Now in possession of a Blackdragon Scale Breastplate recipe he’s got scales to get. I’ve collected, in several week’s worth of attention, 15 scales. The recipe requires 60. I refuse to buy them on the Auction House where a stack of 20 goes for 18g. When you see 10 stacks of 20 scales on sale by the same person, can you say “Bot?”

Seriously, what is Blizzard thinking? If I fought enough Black Dragon flight dragons (all types) to collect 60 scales, I’d be level 60 and would have no further need for such armor. I’d also have to spend so much time in such a constricted area, I’d be reported as the bot. I’d love to craft me a set of dragonscale armor. As it stands, to get the scales myself will earn me so much xp… it’ll make the pvp grind to Rank 10 seem easy.

(The Blackdragonscale Breastplate sells for 80g on my server. 54g in mats (3 stacks of 20 scales, … hmm, I wonder how well they sell).)

And why force me to raid an instance with 10 people to get the patterns. Doesn’t that force people to go to instances to advance? When you force people to instance you take away the beauty of the game. (I bought the pattern in the AH for 5g. I understand it’s a drop from an instance.)

Hey, I loved the loot from Molten Core, when I could raid. I’m 7 hours ahead of my server (and no transfers possible to a European server) and I can’t raid. So let me get something out of grinding. I’m willing to put in the time. They should provide some rewards.

Speaking of rewards tonight I check Msaker and Arcarius’ progress.

Open letter to the bots:

Dear Bot, Your existence offends me. Don’t think you go unreported. Ask your buddies Brafferty (and his buddy Cat) and Mppxporg (and his buddy Cat), Dwarf and Orc respectively. They have some time on their hands recently since I don’t see them endlessly looping through their corners of the Steppes. Farmers would be one thing. See, I’m going to have to farm. But to be controlled by a program? You are thereby souless and I feel no pity or sympathy for you. Have a nice day.

One Response to

I have noticed many of the same things. As I approach the WoW endgame (level 60) I see something in-game on a level 60 that I think is cool. I look it up on Thottbot — and find that I’d have to raid to get the item or the pattern.

If you want really good gear, you can cross questing off your list. Questing is a great way to level and to get some decent greens. Beyond that, you’ll pretty much come up empty. When that truth sank in, I was greatly disappointed.

PvP is an option for some, though I know players who either don’t like PvP, or are really not capable of keeping the pace of PvP. For example, I don’t like WSG, yet some of the best gear my druid can get for several slots is Warsong Outrider gear.And I’ve experienced it, and yes: PvP is a grind, too. Not to mention that I am reasonably sure that I will never attain the epics under the current PvP rank system (not even sure I can attain the rares!), and I hold little hope that any new PvP honor / rank system will enhance my chances.

Rep grinding for a faction is, IMO, loathsome. Yet what can you do? If you want the item or pattern, then you grind, since they are mostly BOP. But let me go on record as saying that forcing players to grind for rep is bad / lazy game design. Actually, that’s stating the obvious, but it needs to be said.

What WoW desperately needs is more variety. That’s why in-game events are so popular – things like Halloween are a big hit because it’s a change of pace.

I was surprised when I advanced through the content and saw the same cave layout, the same inn layout, the same set of mobs every time doing exactly the same thing, etc, etc, etc. If there is one thing that I would work into the expansion, it would be variety at all levels — unique building layouts, better mob AI, instances that are modular in design so that the instance layout and mobs vary with each spawn, etc. And I would enhance in-game events to include things like buildings being regularly built and torn down, and more NPCs entering and leaving the game, sites like mines updated with new tunnels and cave-ins, and perhaps even add in Horde and Alliance camps, NPCs, incursions into new areas.

How about guards and special PvP faction NPCs with real people at the controls? Certainly raiding the enemy territory would be more interesting if you didn’t really know if the guard was run by dumb AI or a human!